Abby Gaines - That New York Minute

When she was finally upright, the floor seemed to shift beneath Garrett, forcing him to put a hand to the wall.

“You’ve been overdoing the pizza,” he said, eyeing Stephanie’s enormous, round belly.

“The baby’s due in June.” She planted her fists on her hips, as if defying him to disapprove. The movement thrust her belly out even farther. “I’m seven months along. We would have told you sooner, except we haven’t seen you since Christmas—” he’d spent the holiday with them only because his brother had been home on leave from his naval posting “—and we didn’t know I was pregnant then.”

“And Dad was meant to tell me about this last week.”

“Among other things.” She bent at the knees to scoop up her little backpack. “Do we have to do this in the hallway?”

“Where’s Dad?” Garrett glanced around.

Stephanie slung the pack over one shoulder. “I left him.”

Once again, Garrett’s world tipped on its axis. “You mean, left him out in the car, right?” But he hadn’t seen a Hummer parked in the street.

“I mean, left our marriage.” She plucked the key from his suddenly nerveless fingers. “Let’s go inside.”

In the condo, Garrett used the time spent disarming the burglar alarm and turning on lights to try to get his head around this bizarre new development. Nope, he couldn’t do it. “Does Lucas know about the baby?”

“Of course.” Stephanie set her pack down next to the sofa and sat. “I wrote to him a few months back.”

Garrett wondered what his brother had made of the news. He’d tried to convince Lucas that Stephanie was the enemy, back when their dad had married her, but Lucas had been twelve years old and he’d wanted a mother. He hadn’t seen the wrongness of their dad marrying again so quickly after Mom died, without consulting them, without listening to Garrett’s protests. The wrongness of Dwight expecting them to welcome Stephanie and her clumsy attempts at stepmotherhood.

“Aren’t you too old to be doing this?” He waved at her stomach without looking. “Is it IVF?” He couldn’t imagine his dad submitting to the invasive process.

“I just turned forty-five—it’s within the bounds of possibility.” She cupped her hands over her stomach protectively. “Though it was certainly unexpected. Your father and I tried for a long time to have a baby. When this happened … the symptoms … I thought I was menopausal.”

Too much information.

Garrett headed to the kitchen area. “Coffee?” he said over his shoulder.

“Do you have decaf?”

“No.”

She sighed. “Okay, but make it a weak one. You’re supposed to cut back on caffeine in pregnancy—though since it took me four months to figure out I was pregnant that didn’t quite happen.”

Away from that telltale stomach, Garrett pulled his thoughts into order. Okay, Stephanie was pregnant, a little fact that everyone except Garrett had known. Due in June. At which point he would have a half brother or sister.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” he called.

“I don’t know.” Stephanie spoke from the other side of the island, making him jump. “I want it to be a surprise—your father wanted to know but it turns out the mother’s wishes prevail in this sort of thing.”

She sounded almost amused. Probably hadn’t been too many times her wishes had prevailed since she’d married Admiral Dwight Calder. Wait a minute …

“Did you say you left my father?” How he could have lost sight of that detail?

“That’s right.” She eyed the amount of coffee he was scooping into the press with misgiving.

“Is he upset about the baby? I would have thought he’d be delighted to have another chance at a son he could mold in his own image.”

“Dwight would never expect this baby to replace you,” she said. “Or Lucas.”

Mention of his brother was an obvious afterthought, presumably to make Garrett feel less left out of his father’s affections.

“I don’t care if it does, if it takes the pressure off me.”

The kettle began to whistle. Garrett poured water into the press.

“I asked Dwight to come see you because I don’t want him making the same mistakes with this baby that he made with you,” Stephanie said.

Garrett’s head jerked up; boiling water sloshed over the side of the press and onto his thumb.

He cursed and turned on the faucet. He stuck his thumb beneath the running water. Stephanie moved into the kitchen and took over the job of putting the lid on the press. She was so big with that—that thing in her stomach, Garrett felt as if he couldn’t get away from her.

“So now you’re concerned about me and Dad?” he asked. “Shouldn’t you have thought of that, say, fifteen years ago, and not married him two minutes after my mom died?”

She ignored his dig. “Dwight’s been supportive of this baby in the obvious ways….”

“But not emotionally,” Garrett said.

She nodded. “I told him if he can’t prove to me he can be a loving father, I don’t want him in our child’s life.”

“He’s a loving father to Lucas.” Garrett still couldn’t figure out what the heck was going on, why Stephanie was really here.

“We both know that’s because Lucas is in the navy and hasn’t yet needed to butt heads with your dad. Dwight needs to open his heart to this baby no matter what choices it makes.” She pushed the plunger down on the press. “Cups?”

With his unscalded hand, Garrett indicated a cupboard to her left.

Stephanie poured coffee into one mug. She glanced from the press to the other mug, bemused.

“Fill yours halfway, then top it up with water,” Garrett instructed.

She shook her head, as if to clear it, and laughed. “Sorry, I struggle with the most basic decisions these days. Blame the hormones.”

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